A new movement has been established to inspire better gender equality practices and encourage transparent and fully funded gender policies from all Australian political parties.
She Votes is a non-bipartisan initiative founded by Merewether local Louise Rose, designed to increase knowledge around gender equality challenges and influence political parties into making concrete gender equality promises.
Rose said the time for political parties to establish their gender equality policies had never been more important.
“I’ve always had a passion for equality, human rights and in particular, gender equality,” Rose said.
“The past 18 months have been tough for Australian women.
“I knew I wanted to do something about the lack of structural change and commitment we’re seeing from the political parties, and the idea for She Votes came to me.”
She Votes pursues a two-prong approach, firstly, providing a space for conversation, informing the Australian public about the general status of Australian women and the current challenges.
Secondly, She Votes aims to provide transparency on what gender equality policies political parties have committed to at the next election.
All voters can visit the She Votes website and view and compare all of the political parties’ promises and funding.
Rose said the goal of She Votes was to provide clear information about the Australian political parties’ gender policies and the level of commitment and funding from each.
“We’re not deciding for you who to vote for, we want Australians to be informed, and you select based on what is important to you,” Rose said.
“There is more than one way to achieve gender equality, and different people will place varying levels of importance on different focus areas.
“We will share with you the policies and the promised funding to achieve them from every political party all in one place.”
Rose said the last two years had been particularly challenging for women in Australia.
According to Destroy the Joint’s register of women killed by violence in Australia, 59 women were killed in 2020 and 43 in 2021.
So far this year, seven women have been killed due to violence.
Rose said with increasing statistics of domestic violence cases and economic disruption caused by the pandemic, Australia’s fight for gender equality had diminished.
“Australia is actually going backwards in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Index,” Rose said.
“In 2006, we were ranked 15 out of 150 countries, but in 2021, we’ve since slipped 35 places and are now ranked 50 out of 156 countries.”
Rose stressed the importance that women’s issues were everyone’s issues.
“If you have a mother, a sister or a friend who identifies as female, then women’s issues are your issues,” she said.
“We need everyone’s voices to give our nation a better chance of achieving gender equality sooner.
“The language politicians understand more than any other is votes, and we want them to know that we’ll be voting based on gender equality policies.”
She Votes has also started a petition on change.org asking for transparent and fully funded gender policies from all Australian political parties.
“It’s not a new concept, women have had the vote in Australia for over 100 years, yet gender equality is still a long way off; we need to band together to put gender policies at the forefront of political action,” Rose said.
“We’re talking about using your voice and vote to help give our nation a better fighting chance at achieving gender equality.
“We want to improve gender equality in Australia using the power of democracy.”
The petition aims to encourage all political parties to; develop fully-fledged gender policies across key priority areas for women; implement these gender policies and provide associated funding; provide a place for women and their allies to assess political promises and gender policies to inform their vote.
For more information on She Votes and their goals for the upcoming federal election, or to sign the petition, head to their website shevotes.com.au.
Hayley McMahon